Nintendo will reveal details about its 'NX' console in 2016, could arrive without region lock

There’s both good and bad news to share as it relates to Nintendo. During a recent investor meeting, Nintendo president and CEO Satoru Iwata said his company won’t be discussing its next console, its mysterious health project or its slate of five smartphone games at this year’s Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) in June.

Iwata said Nintendo will, however, discuss specifics about the new “NX” console next year. He noted that because they are calling it a new concept, the team working on it isn’t thinking of it as a simple replacement for the 3DS or the Wii U.

In a seemingly unusual move, Iwata announced the development of the NX back in March – largely to quell concerns that Nintendo might be exiting the home gaming system industry. Aside from the codename, not much else is known about the project as of writing.

In other Nintendo news, Iwata said customer feedback and proposals from the market have prompted the company to investigate the possibility of eliminating region locks.

Nintendo was the first console maker to implement region locks with its NES system through the use of different sized cartridges versus the Famicom. The early console also used an authentication chip that was coded for one of three different regions.

Region locks are still widely used for a variety of legitimate reasons and while Iwata said removing them from current game machines doesn’t seem realistic, they are looking at it optimistically going forward with the NX.